China and the Principle of Self-Determination of Peoples

7/30/2019 China and the Principle of Self-Determination of Peoples

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79China and the Principle ofSelf-Determination of Peoples

Anonymous

abstract

There are major dierences between the Chinese Communists pre-1944 and post-1944 policies with regard to the rights o non-ethnic Chinese. In recent years, theChinese government has moved toward accepting the two International Covenantson human rights. Although these explicitly endorse the principle o peoples rightto sel-determination (not to be conused with independence), the way that theChinese government views its attendant obligations is inconsistent with the plain

language o the operative legal instruments. The problem is complicated by theact that the generally relied-upon Chinese versions o the relevant internationalinstruments, which the Chinese government claims to accept in principle, are incertain crucial respects at variance rom what the authentic versions actually say.There is also a disconnect between the way Chinese and Central Asians tend to viewquestions o territorial sovereignty. Some Central Asian peoples have gained theirindependence (rom China and Russia), and some o Chinas subject peoples appear

willing to accept present arrangements. For the others, the struggle continues. Thisarticle contextualizes the sel-determination question in terms o Chinese territoryand ideology. It also examines Chinese responses to modern international law and

how China operates within the United Nations system and responds toun values.It discusses Chinas perception o sel-determination elsewhere, including thedissolution o ederal and unitary states, and explores some o the implications oChinas stand. The authors also suggest some possible alternative paths or eectingsel-determination.

Introduction

The ounding o the United Nations (un) was, in part, to prevent orrectiy victimization that comes about through aggression or threat oaggression.1 The two international human rights covenants, the Inter-national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (iccpr) and the Inter-national Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (icescr),explicitly endorse the principle that all peoples have the right o sel-determination.2 However, as we demonstrate below, China tries to rely

on inauthentic versions o these treaties that deny the right o peoples

China and the Principle o Sel-Determination o Peoples,

St Antonys International Review6, no. 1 (2010): 79102.


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80 to sel-determination. Though it has not always been their position, theChinese Communists now reject the idea that any portion o the terri-tory they control is entitled to sel-determination. They have grown ac-customed to thinking o China, in its present delineation, as the producto historic necessity and geographic logic. The country is seen as com-

prising a multi-ethnic amily inhabiting a sel-dening geographic area.Many Central Asians, on the other hand, see current boundaries as arbi-trarily attaching or dividing their nations, and view the present situationas one phase in their long struggle or nationhood and independencerom China and/or Russia. Some o these peoples have been successul.For the others, including some now contained within the Peoples Re-public o China (prc), the struggle continues.

The existing situation lacks any semblance o sel-determination,despite the act that various ethnic minority areas in China have been

designated autonomous province-level jurisdictions (or, within otherprovinces, sub-province-level jurisdictions). In Chinese, autonomy is (zizhi), which literally means sel-rule. Although some culturaldierences are accommodated in this system, China is still a unitarystate. The so-called autonomous areas actually have even less political au-tonomy than the non-autonomous areas. For example, in normal prov-inces, the peoples congresses are authorized to enact laws on their ownauthority; they need merely report them to Beijing ater the act. Au-

tonomous regions, on the other hand, must receive advance permission toenact legislation, and such authorization is oten withheld. Furthermore,the heavy hand o the Chinese military and national security apparatusis more in evidence in the autonomous areas than in non-autonomousareas.3 There is widespread dissatisaction with this arrangement. Seces-sion, however, is not the only alternative to the status quo; other optionsthat we will discuss are worth considering.

Contextualizing Self-Determination in China

Ater the Chinese overthrew their Manchu rulers in 1911, the ChineseRepublic claimed all the lands that had been part o the Manchu empire.Although at rst this seemed like empty rhetoric, the Republic (1911-1949) was eventually to sustain its claim in many areas. This was in parta consequence o the countrys association with the victorious powers in

World Warii. In the meantime, Chinas let took a dierent line. In 1920,just beore he joined the Communist Party, Mao Zedong argued against

national unication. Instead, he maintained that, not only ought thenon-Han regions to be independent, but allo Chinas provinces should


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81become separate sovereign countries.4 In the 1930s, there was no morediscussion o ragmenting the ethnic Chinese community, but when itcame to other peoples, the Communistseager to distance themselvesrom the ruling Guomindang (Nationalist) governmentlargely echoedMaos 1920 line.

Thus, Article 14 o the 1931 Communist state constitution recognizedthe right o sel-determination o the national minorities in China, theirright to complete separation rom China, and to the ormulation o anindependent state or each national minority. Specically, all Mongo-lians, Tibetans, Miao, Yao, Koreans, and others living on the territoryo China shall enjoy the ull right to sel-determination, i.e., they mayeither join the Union o Chinese Soviets or secede rom it and orm theirown state as they may preer.5 By 1944, this policy had changed, withMao now insisting that all nationalities should have an equal and rater-

nal relationship under a united government o all.6 Five years later, theCommunists assumed power, and the 1931 pledge was completely aban-doned.7 From then on it was insisted that the boundaries o the Chinesestate would include all non-ethnic-Chinese peoples then under Chinesecontrol as well as Tibet.

Today, with ew i any exceptions, all countries accept Chinas claimsto territorial sovereignty over the territory it controls,8 including the larg-er part o the prc where non-ethnic-Chinese predominate. Most coun-

tries also accept its claim to sovereignty over Taiwan. There are problemareas: China is not satised with having mere de juresovereignty overTaiwan, and it insists that in due course this sovereignty be made mani-est.9 Despite these issues, Chinas sovereignty over the territories andpeoples it controls goes unchallenged by oreign governments, i not al-

ways by international public opinion.

Chinese Responses to International Law

Overwhelming state recognition or a given territorial status is sometimesconsidered a powerul indicator o that status in international law. Thequestion arises: should places like Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan be treateddierently? To answer this, it is necessary to consider the meaning osovereignty and to examine the international legal principle o sel-de-termination (a concept not to be conused with independence10),and theacts o Chinas involvement with these outlying territories. In brie, ourposition is that although international recognition is indicative o the

(political) opinions o the recognizing governments,11 this has involvedno judicial determinationor example, o the kind that has been made


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82 in relation to some territories elsewhere by the International Court oJustice.12 Thereore, international recognition cannot override the rightto sel-determination under international law i it can be shown that ina given case the relevant acts and the applicable law support the appli-cability o that right.

Under the traditional theory o state sovereignty, which has under-pinned international law or more than three hundred years, the rul-ers o states determined among themselves which territories they wouldrule. This process, inaugurated by the Treaty o Westphalia in 1648, didnot give any role to subjects. I sovereignty was not determined by con-quest, it was decided by mutually agreed cession. More recently, the basicrequirements o sovereign nationhood were spelled out in Article 1 othe 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties o States. Ac-cording to this Convention, a sovereign state should have a permanent

population, a dened territory, a government, and the capacity to enterinto relations with other states.

However, all this must now be supplemented, and (in any case oconfict o principles) superseded, by the right o sel-determination.This principle has received such widespread recognition in the yearssince the Second World War, notably through its inclusion in the twointernational human rights covenants, that it may be regarded as havingthe status o international customary law, even or countries which are

not parties to the covenants.13

Furthermore, the Montevideo Principlesare a normative statement o the expected attributes o a sovereign state,and thus appear to be minimum criteria. Thereore, they cannot be takento mean that i the our Montevideo criteria are met (or example, by animperial state in relation to a dependent territory), sovereignty over thesubject peoples becomes unchallengeable and immutable, inasmuch asthat would be inconsistent with the right to sel-determination. In addi-tion, the dened territory criterion is unsatisactory since it begs thequestions o who denes the territory and to what extent challenges to a

governments denition o its territory undermine the claim to territorialsovereignty.

Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the Montevideo principles couldbe applied to our areas o concern. I one leaves aside the dened ter-ritory problem, Tibet and Taiwan seem to have met the Montevideocriteria in 1949.14 Large parts o Xinjiang15 and all o the other territo-ries populated by non-ethnic Chinese may not have done so in mod-ern times. However, it is our argument that this is not determinative

o whether these territories had or have a right to sel-determination,as this depends not on whether they meet the Montevideo criteria, but


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83on whether they are capable o meeting the separate criteria or sel-determination discussed below.

Modern international law was largely a Western invention. This ap-plies particularly to the doctrine o state sovereignty. It is, thereore, notsurprising that Chinas explanation o its claim to outlying territories

tends to be based less on international law than on historyalbeit his-tory with Chinese characteristics. The histories o these areas are toocomplex to be handled adequately in a short article, but to begin with,any objective account would have to highlight the ollowing two acts:(1) Chinas northern border is largely the product o agreements betweenthe Manchus and Russians, and later between China and the Soviet Un-ion. These agreements tended to be at the expense o the other nationssandwiched between the two. (2) Most o Tibet came under Chineserule only in the 1950s, through a combination o actual and threatened

military invasion; beore then that country basically met the our re-quirements o the Montevideo Convention. We will return to Taiwanand Xinjiang later.

No Westphalia-type system existed in Asia until well into the nine-teenth century, when the concept o state sovereignty began to nd a-

vour there. However, as elsewhere, the concept came into confict withnationalist aspirations and with a new idealism that held that peoplesshould have the right to determine their national status. At the Paris

Peace Conerence ater World War i, us President Woodrow Wilsonpushed or a peace settlement based on the principle that every territori-al settlement in this war must be made in the interest and or the beneto the populations concerned, and not as a part o any mere adjustmentor compromise o claims amongst rival states.16 In the end (contraryto Wilsons intent), this principle was applied selectively, usually whereit coincided with the interests o major players. Oten it was fagrantlyignored, or example in the transer o the ormer German treaty port oQingdao to Japan against the wishes o its Chinese inhabitants.17

By the end o World Warii the overall situation had changed. Whenthe United Nations was established it was accepted in principle that peo-ples had the right o sel-determination. This was expressly stated inthe un Charter (Art. 2.1). All states that became members o the UnitedNations have, by virtue o their ratication o its Charter, accepted thatthere is a right o sel-determination o peoples. As this right representeda potential challenge to the European colonial empires that still existedin the late 1940s, such countries were generally reluctant to reiterate it,

and it was not mentioned in the 1948 Universal Declaration o HumanRights. In the years that ollowed, many new Asian and Arican stateslost interest in sel-determination, eeling either that the battle had been


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84 won, or that their ragile countries gainsin terms o reedom romoreign dominationmight be at risk o being undone by disintegration

brought about by separatist movements.This latter consideration partially explains the Chinese Communists

aorementioned shit in policy and was one o the reasons why, in 1955,

the Bandung (Indonesia) conerence o Third World countries enshrinedthe principle o non-intererence in other countries internal aairs.18 Anobjective o many o the thirty countries that participated at Bandung

was to ensure that their own ethnic minorities should not be able to callon external assistance in any eort to secure their perceived rights. Tothis end, governments were willing to agree that they would not inter-ere by assisting any separatist movements in other countries. Some cal-culation o this kind seems to have infuenced Indias change o positionin the 1950s in relation to Tibet. Whereas in 1950 the Indian position

had been that Tibetans had the right o sel-determination,19 by the timeo Bandung, India was prepared to acquiesce in Chinas occupation.

Despite these setbacks, the idea o sel-determination o peoples didnot die, not least because there were still active decolonization strug-gles in many parts o the world. In the early 1960s, the United Nationsagreed that there was an international obligation to recognize the righto sel-determination and, in 1966, wrote it into the very rst articles inthe two human rights covenants (hereater Joint Article 1). Unortu-

nately there has been no consensus about what the right means. To itschampions it means what it says. To Communists and Soviet-infuencedcountries, it generally means the right to have a orm o governmentthat is socialist in the political sense. The governments o the larger,newly established, multi-ethnic nationsincluding Chinaconsideredthemselves exempt, viewing the right as being directed solely againstEuropean and Japanese colonialism. But many continue to reject thisexemption as morally objectionable and legally untenable. Indeed, the1975 Helsinki Declaration rearmed that the right o sel-determination

is not limited to peoples who were colonized in such a narrow sense othe word.20

China in the United Nations: System and Values

For the rst quarter century ater its establishment in 1949, the Chi-nese government showed little concern or the ner points o interna-tional law. However, within ve years o the prcs 1971 admission to

the United Nations, the two international human rights covenants wereratied by enough countries or them to enter into orce. The Chinese


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85

ound themselves conronted with the norm they thought they had suc-cessully avoided by virtue o the 1955 Bandung agreement. Terms like

nationalities and peoples, which in China had taken on Chinesecharacteristics, were cropping up in new contexts among peoples whodid not accept Chinese denitions.

Although the term peoples is never altogether precise, it denitelyhas ethnic connotations.21 The Chinese-language versions o the authenticcovenants acknowledge this act, with the word peoples correctly ren-dered (minzu), literally meaning ethnic groups.22 Until recent timesthe term minzu was generally translated into English as nationalities.23However, by the 1970s, Beijing was becoming alarmed at the notion

that its ty-ve24 ocially recognized nationalities (not to mention allthe unrecognized ones) might be entitled to sel-determine. Eventually,in a process that is still not ully understood, China managed to eect,or at any rate take advantage o, a change in un and popular parlancestemming rom a disparity between the covenants and widely availablerevisionist versions o those covenants. The covenants are actually longquintrilingual documents that were approved by the un General Assem-

bly in 1966.25 Most o the discrepancies between the authentic and re-

visionist Chinese versions are not relevant to the subject o the presentpaper,26 but one is crucial.

Reproduced above is the authentic text o the frst two paragraphs o Article 1 othe International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Note that minzu(ethnic groups) are given the right o sel-determination, whereas later there wouldbe an attempt to substitute the term renmin (citizenries).


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86 These days the English word peoples is usually rendered by theChinese as (renmin), having the same meaning as the plural wordpeople, or perhaps citizenry; it is not the equivalent o a peopleor peoples. Renmin has no ethnic connotation. All citizens o China(including, in the prcs view, the Taiwanese) comprise a single, indivis-

ible renmin. China has since ratied such an adulterated version othe icescr and signed (but not ratied) a similarly adulterated versiono the other covenantthe iccpr. For our purposes, the details o thislittle-studied and, in terms o Chinese domestic law, perhaps unneces-sary27lger de main are not too important. What is important is the ques-tion o whether China has actually ratied (or signed) thecovenants, or

whether they merely ratied (or signed) a spurious set o instrumentsthat purportto be the covenants. The latter appears to be the case.28

Although the term renmin in this context is widely used,29 to this day

the authentic, i rarely reerenced, versions o the covenants use the termminzu, not renmin.30 Some may argue that the term renmin cannot bechallenged because it has gained such currency in un Chinese-languagediscourse. This notion, which we reject, would leave the Chinese andnon-Chinese translations substantively dierentin each case the Chi-nese and non-Chinese covenants simply would not comprise the sametreaty. At any rate, no one seeking redress under a treaty has to rely ona version in any particular language; Chinas peoples could select, or

example, the ocial French version.31

The Charter o the United Nations presents special problems. TheChinese translation was carried out by Chinese Nationalist representa-tives at San Francisco in 1945. It is now accepted that it contains errors,32

but no changes have been made to the ocial document. On the sel-determination question, it is stated in Article 1, Section 2 that one othe purposes o the organization is to develop riendly relations amongnations based on respect or the principle o equal rights and sel-deter-mination o peoples [renmin], and to take other appropriate measures to

strengthen universal peace ().There are two possible ways o viewing this use orenmin. One is that it

was simply a mistake in translation. An alternative, less-likely explana-tion is that in 1945 the use o the term renmin was deliberate,33 and thatthe use o the term minzu in 1965 marks a legal shit. Neither explana-tion would detract rom our argument that not only does internationallaw give peoples (minzu) the right o sel-determination, but that this

principle is not compromised by the various Chinese versions o the in-ternational instruments. I there were any discrepancies, the covenants,being more recent, would supersede the Charter.


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87In 1960 (beore the prc held the China seat at the un, and also be-ore the covenants were nalized), the un General Assembly took up theissue o sel-determination in the context o colonial territories, result-ing in the passage o the Declaration on the Granting o Independenceto Colonial Countries and Peoples.34 Article 1 o this declaration states:

The subjection o peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploi-tation constitutes a denial o undamental human rights, is contrary tothe Charter o the United Nations and is an impediment to the promo-tion o world peace and co-operation. It is important to note that thedeclaration insists not only on independence o colonial countries, butalso o peoples. This is an important distinction. Contrary to the prcposition, it is not only countries but also minzu which have a right o sel-determination. For their part, the covenants say nothing about the sel-determination ocountries. A 1970 resolution urther stated that alien

subjugation, domination and exploitation are a violation o the principleo sel-determination, as well as a denial o undamental human rights,and is contrary to the Charter.35

These two General Assembly Resolutions have been applied exten-sively. The concept o alien domination has been treated at the un as ap-plicable to, inter alia, the occupation o Arab territories by Israel; Cambo-dia by Vietnam; Grenada by the United States; East Timor by Indonesia;Kuwait by Iraq; and Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and later Aghanistan by

the Soviet Union.36

Thus, even beore the two human rights covenantscame into orce, the rule that alien subjugation, domination, and ex-ploitation breach a peoples right to sel-determination already ormedpart o international customary law. Today, when both covenants arein orce and have been very widely ratied, it is established that wherea people is subject to alien subjugation, domination, and exploitation,the situation is one where the principle o sel-determination applies.Furthermore, although in this paper we do not make the case or theactual secession o Chinas autonomous regions, those who do can cite the

doctrine o remedial secession to advance their argument.37However, Beijing does not accept any international responsibility to

honour peoples right o sel-determination. Indeed, the dubious claimo the Chinese government is that ormer countries such as Tibet andXinjiang are inalienable parts o China and have been so or hundreds(Tibet38) or thousands (Xinjiang) o years.39prc citizens who questionthe ocial stance are regularly attacked in the ocial Chinese media in

vitriolic terms as splittists (, fenlie fenzi) and anti-Chinese;

oreigners who raise such issues are accused o improperly meddlingin what is a purely domestic matter. Nonetheless, even in China there


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88 is a small but growing number o people who question the ocial posi-tion.40 Certainly many outside China consider these issues unresolved.

It is true that the application o the sel-determination principle canpresent dicult problems. Since the covenants came into orce in 1976,there has been widespread concern that, i Joint Article 1 were applied

everywhere, it could lead to the break-up o many existing states. Thisapplies particularly to Arica (where national boundaries are mostlycolonial-era constructs) but also to numerous other states where ethnicminority populations orm a majority in their regions. In order to avoidthis consequence, there have been widely supported attempts to devise adenition o sel-determination that is narrower than the bare words inthe covenants. According to Antonio Cassese, the covenants right to sel-determination is applicable only where an entire population resides in astate that has achieved independence,41 or the entire population o a ter-

ritory has yet to receive independence,42 or the territory is under oreignmilitary occupation.43 This is a restrictive denition, which excludes nu-merous groups who would ordinarily be regarded as peoples.44 How-ever, the second and third o Casseses categories could arguably be heldas applying to some o Chinas ethnic minorities.

The Territorial Implications of Chinas Position

Having maintained that international law and human rights principlesare essentially irrelevant to these issues, China bases its territorial claimslargely on history. Although it is our view that the covenants are bind-ing and supersede other considerations, we nevertheless now proceed toexamine the merits o the historic claims, in view o Chinas emphasison the East Asian international experience.

Taiwan: Unrecognized Republic

Historically, this island had been under the rule o Chinese mainlandgovernments only or short periods. The rst period o rule by a main-land-based government was the decade between 1885 (when it was de-clared a province and much o the island was eectively governed by aChinese governor) and 1895 (when it was ceded to Japan). The secondsuch period was rom 1945 to 1949. According to the peace treaties thatormally ended the War, Japan renounced all right, title and claim toTaiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores).45 Beyond that, there

was no explicit transer o sovereignty to either Chinese government.Over the next ew decades, most o the international community came


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89to acknowledge Taiwan as belonging to the Peoples Republic. Still, eveni de jure part o China, Taiwan remains de facto independent. It haseven incorporated into domestic law the human rights covenantstheauthentic ones passed by the un General Assembly.46

The Guomindang, which now governs Taiwan, has long considered

the island part o China (see note 33), but Taiwans opposition Demo-cratic Progressive Party disputes this. Public opinion is strongly opposedto the island being governed by authorities in Beijing, but beyond thatconsensus, there is deep division. While a large minority are in avouro independence, most people are willing to settle or the status quo.Given Chinas intention to wage war to prevent outright independence,they preer to leave the situation ambiguous and unresolved. AlthoughTaiwan enjoys very little international space in which to operate diplo-matically, it is a thriving economic entity.47

The Tibetan Plateau

China claims that it has exercised sovereignty over Tibet or the sevencenturies. In reality, during those years, at the times when China wasruled by ethnic Chinese (Ming [13681644] and Republic), it did notcontrol Tibet; oten it showed little interest in the country. Otherwise,China was itsel ruled by oreignersthe Mongols in the thirteenth cen-

tury, and the Manchus rom 1644 to 1911. These dynasties, in realitygreat international empires, were rightly seen by the Chinese as alienregimes. Ultimately they broke up into their constituent parts. Duringthe Qing dynasty the relationship between a Manchu emperor and hiscontemporary Dalai Lama was generally that o a patron and a religiousleader; it would be an anachronism to think o the relationship as having

been between sovereign and subject. True, the Qing invaded Tibet sev-eral times, but military occupation is not a basis or sovereignty claimsand, at any rate, these occupations were generally short-lived.48

Notwithstanding occasional Qing intererence, Tibet was generallypolitically independent. Thus all Chinas claims to sovereignty based onthe relationship between the Dalai Lama and the Manchu emperors, andsimilar claims based on the earlier relationship between the Mongol em-perors and Tibet, are spurious, since they involve so much historical dis-tortion. Neither the Mongols nor the Manchus ever maintained that theirrelationship with Tibet made the country an integral part o China. Evencurrent Chinese explanations describe the relationship as one o depend-

ency, which, in modern language, denotes a colonial relationship. From


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90 this, one might conclude that on some level China understands that Tibetwas a colony and thus is entitled to sel-determination.

During the Republic era there was little in the way o a relation-shipeither similar to that between Tibet and the Qing dynasty or con-gruent with the modern concept o international relations based upon

sovereignty o states. In 1913 the thirteenth Dalai Lama ormally statedthat the relationship between the Chinese emperor and Tibet had beenthat o patron and priest and not based on the political subordinationo one to the other. Although the Chinese Republic responded to thisstatement by laying claim to Tibet, it never exercised any control overmuch o it. Certainly the area o the present truncated Tibet AutonomousRegion was entirely independent o the Chinese Republic.

Thus, Chinas actual control over Tibet dates rom the 1950s. Aterthe Chinese army attacked and surrounded the Tibetan army, the Tibetan

government was told that to avoid a orcible takeover it must acknowl-edge Chinese sovereignty. Accordingly, the ourteenth Dalai Lama,then a teenager, did so in 1951 by agreeing to the so-called SeventeenPoints.49 Today, Tibetans challenge the legality o this agreement. Fordisinterested observers, common sense would place the Seventeen Pointsin the same category as the many unequal agreements China consid-ers illegitimate. Furthermore, although the Seventeen Points containedmany guarantees o Tibetan autonomy, over time the Chinese paid them

less and less regard. The Chinese steadily tightened their grip until, atthe end o the decade, there was a revolt, which was crushed by thePeoples Liberation Army. The un General Assembly thereupon adopteda resolution condemning the Chinese occupation o Tibet as an abuse ohuman rights.50 In 1961, a General Assembly urther stated that theseevents [the Chinese occupation] violate the undamental human rightsand reedoms set out in the Charter o the un and the Universal Declara-tion o Human Rights, including the principle o the sel-determinationo peoples and nations.51 However, Tibet has since been eectively under

the rule o the Communist Party, backed by the military. The Dalai Lamahas presided over an India-based government in exile.52

Aside rom the historical argument, China has also attempted tojustiy its takeover o Tibet and other minority areas on the groundsthat these societies were backward53 and that the peasants and sersneeded to be liberated rom eudal dominationan argument similar tothat once invoked by Europeans and Japanese in deence o colonialism.Scholars agree that most o these areas were backward, as was almost all

o China.54

One aspect o Tibets backwardness was its ailure to appointambassadors to other countries or to make timely application to join theUnited Nations. To put the issue in the terms o the Montevideo Conven-


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91tion, the country ailed to exercise its capacity to enter into relations withother states. (However, the Convention only requires that a state havethecapacity, not that it exercise it. See note 14.)

These mistakes were due to tradition-bound governance and a lack oany clear sense that in these modern times a state needed to maintain or-

mal diplomatic relations with other states. However, the act that a countryis backward cannot justiy invading it or denying it sovereignty.

Xinjiang: Ethnic Dilution

The histories o the northern and southern regions o the XinjiangUyghur Autonomous Region (xuar) are quite dierent. In the north,Zungaria came under Sino-Manchu rule by virtue o one o the worldsmost eective genocides; in 1756 the Zungars were simply wiped out.55

The depopulated area thus became ripe or settlers rom outside. Mostearly settlers were Turkic Turanchis rom the south, whom Communists

would later label Uyghurs.56 The Republic was not able to control thearea. In the Ili region a Moslem state was established in 1944 that lasteduntil the Communist takeover in 1949.57 In the south, the scattered oasesknown collectively as Eastern Turkestan came under Manchu rule bymilitary means, with the deeat o local eorts to establish a nation-state.Again, the Republic was never able to control the area.

For their part, the Communists have had an explicit policy o pro-moting immigration rom east China to Xinjiang, a migration greatlyacilitated by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.58 Thus,in contrast with Tibet, where ethnic Chinese immigration is viewed asa sensitive issue and is shrouded in secrecy, the Chinese have been quiteopen about promoting immigration into Xinjiang, ully aware o howprovocative this would be. (There will be some conficts and clashes.59)As a result, Uyghurs, who once comprised the overwhelming majority inthe region, are now an underprivileged minority. They are deeply rus-

trated, and there is a small underground movement to establish an inde-pendent East Turkestan. On occasion there have been violent eruptions.The Chinese deal with perceived troublemakers in a heavy-handed way,oten claiming that they are terrorists; executions are not inrequent.60

Inner Mongolia: The Lost Cause

The Mongols o the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region are a clearly

dened ethnic group, o the same general ethnicity as the inhabitants oindependent (Outer) Mongolia andin terms o culture, economics,


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92 and liestyleare very distinct rom the Han (ethnic Chinese). InnerMongolia and Mongolia used to be one country. The diculty acingany Mongol inhabitant o Inner Mongolia seeking sel-determination isthat today almost ninety per cent o the territorys inhabitants are Han.By any realistic standard, the demographic change has gone too ar or

Mongol sel-determination to be realizable.

Alternative Paths to Self-Determination

It is important to bear in mind that there are viable options between theextremes o unitary state and outright secession. Sel-determination neednot mean independence. Autonomy within a larger nation-state otenoers the best o both worlds, combining the benets o being part o alarge state in terms o deence, oreign relations, and economic opportu-nity, while ostering the preservation o local laws, customs, and culture,ree rom outside intererence. Although they were denied the right osel-determination, Hong Kong and Macao are areas where China hasallowed a measure o autonomy. Elsewhere in the world, examples osel-determination without independence abound.61 Some Chinese dissi-dents advocate remaking the country into a ederation or conederation,although the expression o such views is an imprisonable oence.62

The Dalai Lama has repeatedly announced that he avours autonomy

or Tibet within the prcprovided that the autonomy is genuine andthat Tibet includes almost all o the plateau.63 Such is the Dalai Lamasauthority among the Tibetan people that they would probably embraceany autonomy agreement i he expressed support or it. However, theChinese claim that this would be independence in disguise, and they earthat genuine autonomy would lead inexorably to secession. It appearsthat meaningul autonomy is not going to be available to Tibetans (or anyother ethnic group) in the near uture. This is unortunate. It is dicultto imagine the Chinese ever being given a better oer rom a legitimateleader o the Tibetan people than that available now rom the moderateFourteenth Dalai Lama, who is in his mid-seventies.

Chinas Perception of Self-Determination Elsewhere

Decolonization

The Chinese have always insisted that Japan and European colonialpowers should be shorn o their colonies. However, China rejects theapplication o the principle o sel-determination to minorities within es-


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93tablished states. About 3,000 ethnic groups live in over 200 countriesand regions in todays world. The overwhelming majority o countriesare inhabited by multi-ethnic groups.64 The Chinese government viewstheir country in this context, and not as a case o colonialism. Tibetans

would doubtless argue that their statehood was as well established as

East Timors was when the ormer Portuguese enclave was invaded byIndonesia in 1975. Unlike East Timor, Tibet issued passports and had itsown currency in addition to other trappings o statehood. East Timorsinitial independence in 1975 was ephemeral, lasting only nine days. Inthe Chinese view, East Timors background had been tainted by Euro-pean and Japanese colonialism, and apparently that made all the di-erence. Thus, China roundly condemned the Indonesian takeover as anaked act o aggression.65

From the perspective o the Chinese government, legitimate acts o

sel-determination are limited to such narrowly-dened colonial situa-tions. China appears unimpressed by the act that sel-determination is acommon phenomenon and that peoples occasionally gain independencerom well-established states.66 It recently explained to the InternationalCourt o Justice: Although the principle o sel-determination has be-come a basic principle o international law, it applies within speciclimits, primarily restricted to situations o colonial rule or oreign occu-pation. The right to sel-determination is dierent in nature rom the so-

called right o secession. The exercise o the right o sel-determinationshall not undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity o the Stateconcerned.67

The Dissolution of Federal and Unitary States

Provided that there is no oreign intererence, China has on occasiongrudgingly acquiesced in the dissolution o what are regarded as ederalstatesor example, the ussr and Yugoslavia. The demise o the latter

was dicult to accept because the previous Yugoslav government hadopposed the breakup. The dissolution o the ussr, which was accepted

by the Soviet government, was even more threatening to China becauseo its proximity and the kinship o many o the new states to Chinas mi-nority populations. In general, China has opposed secession even in thecontext o ederal dissolution, fatly stating (in the context o Kosovossecession rom the Federal Republic o Yugoslavia68) that secession isnot recognized by international law and has always been opposed by

the international community o states.69

It seems to be even more op-posed to the dissolution o what it regards as unitary stateso which


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94 China is an example.70 Thus when South Ossetia and Abkhazia declaredtheir independence rom Georgia in 2008, China reused to recognizethemas indeed did most countries o the world.71

Conclusion

The Chinese are accustomed to thinking o their country in its presentdelineation as the product o historic necessity and geographic logic. Inthe words o ethnologist Ma Rong, the country is seen as comprised oan ethnic amily living in a relatively closed geographic area. Thisarea has deserts and snow orests to the north (Mongolia Steppe andSiberia), seas and ocean to the east, jungles in its south (Burma andIndo-China), [and] the highest mountains and plateau in its west andsouthwest (Himalayas and Pamirs).72

Central Asians are more apt to see current boundaries as arbitrar-ily dividing their nations. Some o these peoples have been successulin their quests or independence rom China (Mongolia) and now evenrom Russia (Central Asian states). For the others, the struggle to recap-ture their nationhood continues. They deem their causes worthy o sup-port rom the United Nations, which was expressly intended to preventthe kind o victimization that has taken place through aggression or thethreat o aggression. Ater all, the inclusion in Joint Article 1 o the right

oallpeoples to sel-determination was intended to prevent whole ethniccommunities rom being ruled indenitely against their will by alienpowers.

The claim that the Peoples Republic o China is entitled to all theterritory that was ever controlled by the Manchus comes into question

because o the substantial portions o that empire whose separation romChina has been accepted. Although Chinese logic would lead to the con-clusion that eastern Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Tanutuva, the Russian Mari-time provinces, and possibly even Uzbekistan73 all belong to the prc,China in act makes no such claims. Even the independence o Mongo-lia, whose statehood the Republic o China only briefy acknowledged in1945, has been accepted. Accordingly, there is no logical reason to denyTibet and Xinjiang the right o sel-determinationespecially in view ointernational obligations and the Communists pre-1944 promises.

Granted, there are dierences between situations in Tibet and Xin-jiang. In Tibet, the great majority o inhabitants have always been Tibet-an. The country was relatively homogenous ethnically, and the Tibetans

t the description o a people occupying a dened territory. Xinjiang,on the other hand, was home to a variety o ethnic groupsalbeit with


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95the Uyghurs, until recently, in the majority. It is ar rom clear that theaggregated non-Han peoples o Xinjiang can be described as a peopleor the purposes o Joint Article 1. The Kazakhs, or example, live mainlyin northern Xinjiang while the Turanchis/Uyghurs traditionally livedin the south. To be sure, these divisions are not clear-cut, nor are the

boundaries between southern and northern Xinjiang. Nevertheless, thescale o the alien domination, subjugation, and exploitation o the Uy-ghurs by China, combined with the vast dierence between Uyghur andHan culture, is such that the Uyghurs could probably make a legal caseor sel-determination as a people, at least in the areas in which they

were the overwhelming majority beore the Chinese takeover in 1949.But the Chinese authorities have rejected the covenants principle

that all peoples have the right to sel-determination. The rst articleo the bogus International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social

Rights that China ratied essentially reverses the meaning o the ac-tual covenant. Ater all, to say that only the entire citizenry o a state (therenmin) has the right o sel-determination is to eectively deny the righto sel-determination to the states ethnic componentsits peoples. Forsome o these peoples time may be running out. Oten their areas haveeither been inundated with ethnic Chinese (Inner Mongolia), or are inthe process o being inundated (Xinjiang). Taiwan appears to have somechance o converting its de factoindependence into de jurestatehood, but

lately the political will o the Taiwanese appears to be fagging. The greatunknowable is the uture o Tibet, which is still predominately inhabitedby Tibetans and maintains a strong sense o national identity. At least inthe short term, Tibet appears to have little prospect o meaningul sel-determination. Unless China succeeds in gaining ocial acceptance orits revisionist versions o the covenants, however, all peoples will remainentitled to this right by international law.

Notes

Editorial Note: This article was submitted by two authors who wish to remainanonymous. They are grateul to the various people who provided suggestions orthis paper.

1 According to the Preamble o the United Nations Charter, the organization wasto rearm aith in undamental human rights in the dignity and worth onations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect

or the obligations arising rom treaties and other sources o international law canbe maintained: UN Charter (June 26, 1945) 3 Bevans 1153, 59 Stat 1031, TS 993(entered into orce October 24, 1945).


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962 Both these covenants were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in1966 and came into orce in 1976 on receiving the required number o ratications

by governments. Both have now been ratied by 160 or more countries.

3 For more discussion o this, see Human Rights in China, China: Minority Ex-clusion, Marginalization and Rising Tensions, Report commissioned by MinorityRights Group International, http://www.hrichina.org/public/PDFs/MRG-HRIC.

China.Report.pd (accessed March 14, 2010), 13.4 Mao said: 22327

27 Hu-nan Da Gong Bao, September 3, 1920. We are grateul to Maochun Yu orcalling our attention to this material.

5 Constitution o the Chinese Soviet Republic (art. 14), adopted in Ruijin, Jiangxi,1931, translation adapted rom Conrad Brandt, Benjamin Schwartz, and John K.Fairbank, A Documentary History of Chinese Communism (New York: Atheneum,

1966), 223.6 Translation adapted rom Guenther Stein, The Challenge of Red China (New York:McGraw-Hill, 1945), 2435.

7 According to the 1949 Common Programme o the Chinese Peoples Political Con-sultative Conerence: each national autonomous area is an inseparable part o thePeoples Republic o China . The Peoples Republic o China will become a bigraternal and cooperative amily composed o all its nationalities (minzu). Article 18o the 1949 Organic Law o the Central Peoples Government o the Peoples Repub-lic o China assigned responsibility or ethnic matters to a new Commission on the

Aairs o Nationalities, which was apparently reportable to the State AdministrativeCouncil.

8 In addition to Taiwan, China also has claims to territories that it does not physi-cally control, notably parts o Indias Arunachal Pradesh Province, the South ChinaSeas islets, and the latters surrounding waters.

9 The United States was among the last to ocially recognize Chinas sovereigntyover Tibet; it did so in 1966: Relations o the United States with Tibet, Report man-dated by US Public Law 103-236 s 536(a)(2), Foreign Relations Authorization Act (Fiscal

Years 1994-5). At least until recently, the United Kingdom recognized only Chinas

suzerainty over Tibet, a subtle evasion that happens to have been airly close to theactual situation o Tibet in relation to China during the late nineteenth century. Butrecently the United Kingdom seems to have allen into line on this issue. See RobertBarnett, Did Britain Just Sell Tibet? New York Times, November 24, 2008.

10 Independence means secession rom the previously controlling state; sel-de-termination carries no presumption as to what outcome the people would choose.Most o Chinas ethnic minorities would probably opt to continue as part o China,albeit with some meaningul autonomy.

11 To put it in international-law terms, such statehood is constitutive, rather than

declarative (based on objective criteria). James R. Craword, The Creation of Statesin International Law,2nd ed. (Oxord: Clarendon Press, 2006), esp. 1524. Craw-


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97ord argues that, in terms o establishing statehood, recognition by governments isnot signicant.

12 See, e.g., The Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africain Namibia (South-West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970)

(Advisory Opinion) (1971) ICJ Rep 16 (International Court o Justice); Western Sa-hara (Advisory Opinion) [1975] ICJ Rep 12.

13 China is not a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rightsbecause it has only signed, not ratied, it. We explain below that Chinas ratica-tion o the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights may bedeective because the ratied version is inauthentic.

14 The remaining question regarding Tibet involves the requirement o capacity toenter into relations with other states. It should be noted, however, that there is norequirement that such relations actually exist, only that there be capacity. Tibetspre-1950 governmental structure would appear to have met this requirement. In-deed, Tibet oten did enter into agreements with other countries, such as the treaties

with Nepal in 1856 and Mongolia in 1913.15 Any historic claim on the part o southern Xinjiang would cite the state o Kash-garia (established by its amir Yaqub Beg between 1865 and 1870 and reconquered

by the Qing ater Yaqubs death in 1877) and the East Turkestan Republic, whichlasted only rom 1933 to 1934. The northwest could point to another East TurkestanRepublic (19441949).

16 See Woodrow Wilsons Four Principles speech to Joint Session o Congress,February 11, 1918. The quotation is widely available on the Internet, and in AntonioCassese, Self-Determination of Peoples: A Legal Reappraisal (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1995), 20.17 See Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World(New York:Random House, 2001), 233346.

18 On the Asian-Arican or Aro-Asian Conerence o April 1824, 1955, see En-cyclopdia Britannica, Bandung Conerence, http://www.britannica.com/EB-checked/topic/51624/Bandung-Conerence (accessed March 14, 2010).

19 The last voice in regard to Tibet should be the voice o the people o Tibet andnobody else. Prime Minister Jawaharal Nehru to Parliament, 1950, quoted in By-

ron N. Tzou, China and International Law: The Boundary Disputes(New York: Praeger,1990), 25.

20 Final Act, Conerence on Security and Cooperation in Europe (August 1, 1975)art VIII: The participating States will respect the equal rights o peoples and theirright to sel-determination All peoples always have the right, in ull reedom,to determine, when and as they wish, their internal and external political status,

without external intererence, and to pursue as they wish their political, economic,social and cultural development. The participating States rearm the universal sig-nicance o respect or and eective exercise o equal rights and sel-determinationo peoples or the development o riendly relations among themselves as among all

States; they also recall the importance o the elimination o any orm o violationo this principle.


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9821 The Oxford English Dictionarygives this meaning and explanation or peoples(as a plural countable noun): Nations, races. [Examples:] a1382 Bible (Wyclite,E.V.) (Bodl. 959) 1 Paralip. xvi. 24 Telle{th} in gentiles his glorie, in alle puplis hismerueiles [marvels]. ?c1425 (c1380) Isaiah xxxiv. 1 Draw near, O ye nations, andhearken; And attend to me, O ye peoples! 1877 J. Morley Crit. Misc. 2nd Ser. 345 Allour English-speaking peoples. 1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 326/2 The desert regions yield

support only to nomadic peoples, such as the Tuareg. 1999 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 22 Apr.54/3 The Ruthenians are a part o the amily o east Slavic peoples.

22 UN General Assembly (UNGA) Document Lianheguo Dahui (January 12, 1967)UN Doc A/RES/2200(XXI) (in Chinese). In one respect, the term minzu is notprecise because it includes one religious subgroup, the widely scattered Islamic Hui.They do not comprise an ethnic group in any other sense. Most Hui speak Chinese,though some speak Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, or Tartar. Other re-ligious groups are not considered minzu. The Hui are not a people within themeaning o Joint Article 1.

23

Today the Chinese authorities rown on the use o this English word, and minzuis either translated as ethnic groups or transliterated instead o being translated.One Chinese ethnologist argues that it is another term, zuqun, that should berendered as ethnic groups since the term minzu is hopelessly conusing. See MaRong, Ethnic Relations in China (Beijing: China Tibetology Publishing House, 2008),68.

24 Altogether, the government recognizes ty-six ethnic groups, one o which isthe majority Han. Another is the various aboriginal peoples o Taiwan (counted as asingle ethnic group), only a tiny number o whom are ound on the Mainland.

25

There is a procedure or correcting translation errors. It has been used only oncewith respect to the Chinese language portion o the documents, namely the changesmade and accepted in 2001 and 2002 pertaining to the Chinese term or cov-enant (appropriately changed rom to ). See depositary noticationC.N.782.2001.TREATIES-6 (October 5, 2001) (Proposal o correction to the origi-nal o the CovenantChinese authentic text); depositary notication C.N.8.2002.TREATIES-1 (January 3, 2002) (Rectication o the original o the CovenantChinese authentic text); see also note 28.

26 They are discussed in Sun Shiyan, The International Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights: One Covenant, Two Chinese Texts? Nordic Journal of International

Law75, no. 2 (2006), 187209. Unaccountably, Sun does not discuss the issue athand, the renmin/minzu problem. Perhaps he overlooked it or did not attach specialsignicance to it. I he omitted discussion because o the sensitivity o the issue, one

wonders what other subjects may have been avoided.

27 Joseph Wang inorms us that, under PRC domestic law, the constitution and lawspassed by the PRC are superior to treaties, and that the ban on secession would over-rule rights that anyone would purport to assert under the ICESCR.

28 According to the UNs procedure or correcting translation errors, i a countrywishes to correct such a mistake, it submits the revised version and gives public

notice; i there is no objection, the revision stands. However, a major substantivechange cannot be eected by this means. See n. 25.


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9929 The main exception is Taiwan. Otherwise, even the versions available rom thehighly respected and widely used University o Minnesota Human Rights Libraryuses the term renmin. See id., Human Rights Documents and Materials, http://

www1.umn.edu/humanrts (accessed March 14, 2010).

30 For the ull text in all languages, see United Nations, International Covenanton Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, New York, December 16, 1966, http://

treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1976/01/19760103%2009-57%20PM/Ch_

IV_

3p.pd(accessed March 14, 2010).

31 Article premier; 1. Tous les peuples ont le droit de disposer deux-mmesmeaning the same as other originals (but see n. 39).

32 On this, see Sun Biqi, (Memoirs o Being Afoat in theBlue Sea) (Taipei1973). Sun participated in the translationprocess. An internal UN document also discusses these issues: Ye Shen, (Looking or Flaws in the Chinese Texts o the Charter), 1979.

33

Territories claimed by the Communists today have always been claimed by theNationalists, who also claim Mongolia and Tanu Tuva.

34 This declaration was inspired in large measure by the independence struggle othe Algerians. It will be recalled that in the mid-1950s, the French position was thatAlgeria was not a colony but an integral part o metropolitan France. This line wassimilar to Chinas position regarding the autonomous regions; or the English text(we are not aware o any Chinese text), see UNGA Resolution 1514, Declaration onthe Granting o Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (December 14,1960), http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/independence.htm (accessed March21, 2010).

35 UNGA Res 2625, Declaration on Principles o International Law ConcerningFriendly Relations and Co-operation Among States in Accordance with the Char-ter o the United Nations (October 24, 1970) http://www.unhcr.org/reworld/docid/3dda1104.html (accessed March 21, 2010).

36 For a ull list, see Cassese, Self-Determination, 94.

37 On remedial secession, see Michael P. Schar, Earned Sovereignty: Judicial Un-derpinnings, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy31, no. 3 (2003): 37387,especially 373, 37981.

38 For a more detailed account o the historical relationship between China andTibet, see Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibetsince 1947(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

39 This stand is similar to the French position in the mid-1950s regarding Alge-ria, but dierent rom the position o the Soviet Union, which acknowledged the

various republics right to secede (USSR constitutions o 1924, 1936, and 1977). It isthereore ironic that the Article 1 o the Russian portion o the ICESCR does not useeither o the Russian terms or peoples (natsionalnosti, narodnosti), but rathernarody,

which usually means people and is the equivalent o the Chinese renmin. Thus the

Russian portion is inconsistent with all the other languages, but is consistent withthe revisionist Chinese version. Because it was out o step with the ocial Soviet


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100 line, the use onarodymay very well have been a mistake. Certainly, in the end, theright o sel-determination o the non-Russian republics was honored.

40 See Cao Changqing and James D. Seymour, eds., Tibet through Dissident ChineseEyes: Essays on Self-Determination (White Plains, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997); and WangLixiong and Tsering Shakya, eds., Struggle for Tibet(London: Verso, 2009).

41

This point is developed in Cassese, Self-Determination, 5962.42 This point is developed in Cassese, Self-Determination, 1467.

43 See, e.g., Cassese, Self-Determination, 59.

44 This construction excludes Arican tribes whose populations may be concentratedin one part o a state or parts o more than one state. This is to avoid encouragingthe occasional tendency o Arican states to ragment. More problematically, it ex-cludes some peoples with a long history o struggle or independence, such as theKurds, who are spread across parts o Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, andSyria.

45 Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (JapanRepublic o China) (signed April 28, 1952,entered into orce August 5, 1952), http://www.taiwandocuments.org/taipei01.htm(accessed March 21, 2010).

46 Taiwan (i.e., the Republic o China) held the China seat when the covenantswere drawn up and still relies on the authentic Chinese version. No longer beinga member o the UN, Taiwan cannot be a ormal party to the covenants. For thisreason, in December 2009, special implementing rules were instituted to makethe covenants the law o the land notwithstanding the absence o any recognizedtreaty aliation.

47 According to UN gures (based, in Mainland Chinas case, on PRC-supplied data),Taiwans human development index stands at 0.91, higher than any province-level jurisdiction on the mainland. Hong Kong is 0.92; China as a whole is 0.76(2003 gures). See United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), HumanDevelopment Report 2003, http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2003 (ac-cessed March 14, 2010).

48 Forces o the Kangxi Emperor occupied Tibet in 1720. Ater his death in 1722,this occupation continued under his successor, the Yongzheng emperor, until 1728.There were urther Chinese invasions in 1750 and 1792. However, ater each o the

later invasions, the Chinese armies withdrew and Tibet was essentially independ-ent.

49 Annotated text o the Seventeen Point Agreement or the Peaceul Liberationo Tibet appears in Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: TheDemise of the Lamaist State (Berkeley, CA: University o Caliornia Press, 1989),7639.

50 See UNGA Res 1353 (XIV) (October 21, 1959).

51 UNGA Res 1723 (XVI) (December 20, 1961).

52 See Ann Frechette, Democracy and Democratization among Tibetans in Exile,Journal of Asian Studies66, no. 1 (2007): 97127.


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10153 On Tibets previous backwardness, see Inormation Oce o the State Council,Fity Years o Democratic Reorm in Tibet, Beijing Review, March 19, 2009, http://

www.bjreview.com/special/Human_Rights_Action_Plan_2009-2010/2009-03/04/content_232384_3.htm (accessed March 14, 2010).

54 But even some Chinese scholars question the government line that Tibets ruralpopulation are appropriately deemed to have been sers. See Open Constitution

Initiative , 3.14 An Inves-tigative Report Into the Social and Economic Causes o the 3.14 Incident in TibetanAreas (2009), available in English and Chinese at http://www.savetibet.org. Fortheir part, the Communists do not argue that the sers were inherently unequal,only that they were at an earlier stage o development and thus in need o beingliberated by outsiders.

55 See Peter C. Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), ch. 7.

56 It was actually the Soviets who came up with the term, derived rom a large and

powerul khanate that, rom the mid-eighth to the mid-ninth centuries, had domi-nated what later became greater Mongolia (and areas to the west).

57 See Linda Benson, The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority inXinjiang, 1944-1949(London: M. E. Sharpe, 1990).

58 See James D. Seymour, Making Chinas Northwest Sae or the Han: The Role othe Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (orthcoming, in a book edited

by Simon Shen).

59 Li Dezhu in Qiushi, June 2, 2000, quoted in Nicolas Becquelin, Staged Develop-

ment in Xinjiang, China Quarterly178 (2004): 35878, 360. Li was head o theState Ethnic Aairs Commission.

60 In a 1996 article, Dru Gladney cites estimates o 1.8 executions per week, mostlyo Uyghurs. He does not indicate the source. See id., Ethnic Confict Prevention inthe Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region: New Models or Chinas New Region,http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/publications/pd/xuar.pd. See also Amnesty Inter-national, Hasty Executions in China Highlight Unair Xinjiang Trials, November10, 2009, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/hasty-executions-china-highlight-unair-xinjiang-trials-20091110 (both accessed March 14, 2010).

61

E.g., Scotland, Greenland, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, American Indian res-ervations, Aaland Islands, Catalonia, and Anguilla.

62 Most recently, the now-imprisoned Liu Xiaobo advocated that China be trans-ormed into a Federal Republic o China. Even some senior members o the Partyhave argued that it was not legitimate to prosecute Liu on grounds o subversion overthis issue, given that it was similar to an earlier Communist policy. , http://www.boxun.com/hero/201001/xianzhang/139_1.shtml. Their letter can be ound at http://chinesepen.org/Article/sxsy/201001/Article_20100117004353.shtml (both accessed March 14, 2010). See also an ear-lier work, Yan Jiaqi , The Structure of a Federal China (Hong

Kong: Mingbao chuban she, 1992).


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10263 The basic statement is Strasbourg Proposal: The Dalai Lamas Address to theMembers o the European Parliament, June 15, 1988, http://www.claudearpi.net/maintenance/uploaded_pics/1988StrasbourgProposal.pd (accessed March 14,2010).

64 Preace to 2009 White Paper on Ethnic Policy, available at http://www.china-daily.com.cn/china/2009-09/27/content_8743072_2.htm (accessed March 14,

2010).65 Wayne Bert, Chinese Policy Toward Burma and Indonesia: A Post-Mao Perspec-tive,Asian Survey25, no. 9 (1985): 96380, 976.

66 Note the emergence o such countries as Bangladesh, Slovakia, and Singapore.

67 Peoples Republic o China, ICJ Written Statement, Accordance with InternationalLaw of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Provisional Institutions of Self-Gov-

ernment of Kosovo(Request or Advisory Opinion) (April 16, 2009) http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/les/141/15611.pd (accessed March 21, 2010) (Request or Advisory

Opinion) [III].68 This is the name the country usually used since 1992; beginning in 2006, it o-cially styled itsel the State Union o Montenegro and Serbia. In 2006 Montenegroseceded, ollowed by Kosovo in 2008, leaving only Serbia. Kosovo is recognized bysixty-our UN members and by the Republic o China (Taiwan).

69 Peoples Republic o China, ICJ Written Statement, Request or Advisory Opinion(n 67) [III(d)].

70 Any distinction between ederal and unitary is technical and theoretical. Thereality was that the USSR and Yugoslavia were unitary states, ruled by Leninist

parties (as is China). On paper they were deemed ederations, but constitutionallyChina also appears to be ederation-like, with the so-called autonomous regionsgranted sel-government .

71 David Gosset, An Unnecessary Quarrel, Beijing Review, http://www.bjreview.com/quotes/txt/2008-12/16/content_170115.htm (accessed March 14, 2010).

72 Rong, Ethnic Relations, 14.

73 Samarkand marked the west end o the Silk Road, which linked it with China.However, Chinese infuence in the region was weak. The lingua ranca o the cen-

tral Asian Silk Road was a version o Persian, not Chinese.